


Another Kind of Scar

by shiphitsthefan



Category: Supernatural, Wayward Sisters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode: s13e10 Wayward Sisters, F/F, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 13, brief mention of Destiel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 17:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13416252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: Hunting journals aren’t always about hunting monsters, Claire figures. Hunting is hunting, no matter what’s being tracked down.





	Another Kind of Scar

**Author's Note:**

> I watched 13x10 as it aired, and it broke me. Then I wrote and edited this in like an hour and a half, because I have an awful lot of feelings right now. If we don't get this show, I'm going to riot.
> 
> Unbetaed, because emotions.

She hadn’t remembered how it felt to be held, to be sheltered in the lopsided circle of someone’s arms. Claire didn’t remember when the last time was, either. Maybe right before her mother abandoned her. Then again, Claire had always been daddy’s little girl, so maybe not.

Cradling her mother—sure, Claire remembers _that,_ and how _it_ felt, holding the dearly departed as they actually fucking did the departing. If only she could forget.

_ No wonder every other hunter is an alcoholic, _ Claire thinks. She doesn’t write it down.

It’s still hard, not to hate her mother. But Claire’s never been in love, never  _ wants _ to be in love, not when she’s watched it actively destroy a family. If that’s romance, then Claire has a bullet with its name on it. All love of any kind seems to do is hurt, but especially when it’s all invested in another person’s heart.

_ I hadn’t really thought about it before. _ Claire does write that. Hunting journals aren’t always about hunting monsters, she figures. Hunting is hunting, no matter what’s being tracked down.

_ Donna said that Mom said _

Claire quickly crosses it out.

_ Donna said that Jody _

The nib scratches against the paper as Claire banishes all of her sigils and starts over. It’s too loud; they’re too heavy.

_ I don’t think I know what love is, _ she finally writes, once she’s done checking the thread count of the sheets by sight.  _ There’s probably supposed to be some grand universal definition. Something normal that normal people do and make and talk about. That’s probably why I don’t know. Didn’t know, anyway. _

_ If I had to guess, then...scars. I think love might be a scar _ .

And Claire had loved her so quickly, a girl she barely knew, yet still understood. Someone who called her out on her bullshit within less than a day. Someone who wasn’t Jody, at least. She’s always willing to call out Claire’s bullshit.

The ink smears.

_ It’s a scab,  _ continues Claire, when she makes her lungs work again, _ and it bleeds because you can’t stop picking at it, no matter how much it hurts. _

Claire can still feel Jody’s breath in her hair and the pressure and grip of her hands, tight enough to bruise. There’s something like a lullaby, but all Claire could hear was Kaia’s voice in her ears, punctuated by the beat of Jody’s heart. Patience looked down at her—Claire knew she did, now that she was paying attention to and believed in the veracity of the vibration. Yet another wavelength to echo around in Claire’s head.

_ Patience was right, _ Claire scribbles.  _ A part of me  _ did _ die, _ and what a fucking cliche. A goddamn trope. She sounds like a Jane Austen novel, and Claire hates herself for it, but not as much as she hates herself for leaving Kaia behind.

_ I know she’s dead. _

The pen barely makes a mark on the paper. It’s four in the morning, and not even the moon is bright enough to illuminate the words.

Claire presses down harder, going over the letters, again and again and again, making them real. Something tangible, like the bereaved are supposed to have. Sam told her once about the way Dean hung onto her dad’s stupid coat, the one that didn’t fit and had looked ridiculous on him.

“Cas died,” Sam had said, “but...well. People tend not to die for good around us.”

She’d rolled her eyes. “Except for everyone who does.”

Sam had just shrugged it off; none of Claire’s punches ever did seem to land on Sam. “He kept it. Put it in the trunk, from car to car.”

“Please tell me he washed it.” Sam hadn’t said, which meant no, which was utterly disgusting.

This is disgusting, too, this emptiness in the pit of her stomach, and there’s no coat for Claire to keep, nothing the least bit substantial. Nothing she can touch. As for Dean, he’s had not only multiple physical reminders and numerous chances to bid Castiel a fond farewell, but he also, for better or worse, keeps getting his goddamn boyfriend back.

Claire didn’t even get to say goodbye. She'd hardly gotten to say hello.

_ Maybe if she had been an angel, then God would have given a shit. _

Her knuckles turn white. Claire forces herself to relax.

The fact that Kaia had been killed, at all, was horrible enough, but Claire thinks she could have lived with it a little easier if she was able to tell herself that it was nothing more than a, “She was my responsibility,” kind of thing. A maternal, protective instinct, or whatever an older sister would feel, something Jody might’ve accidentally instilled in her or maybe injected into her food.

And then, Jody had cradled Claire in her arms, like a child, and hummed nonsense at her and made her feel safe and loved, and Claire understood that how she felt about losing Kaia was nothing like that, at all.

_ Jody loves me, _ and Claire skips over to the next page to say it, the rest of the previous left to stare in defiance at the ineffable,  _ and it hurts her. Not the way that  _ this _ hurts, but it does. Another kind of scar. _

_ Donna told me _

Her pen hovers over the paper as Claire decides whether or not Jody’s intention to sacrifice herself for her is worth mentioning. Not because it, in and of itself, isn’t meaningful. She’s aware that Jody’s considered herself Claire’s mother for a while now. Being squad mom is universes away from considering Claire as important as a squirmy, fragile human that Jody willingly grew inside her body, though.

The more Claire thinks about it, the more she knows that she isn’t ready for that kind of responsibility. She can’t be a real daughter right now anymore than she can really fly.

Claire presses down with the pen so hard and crosses out the last three words so many times that she tears through the paper. Some hunting journal this is turning out to be.

_ If I’d been stronger, _ writes Claire, _ if I’d been smarter, then she’d still be here, and then maybe I could figure out why this hurts more than not being able to save somebody I’ve known for more than a minute. Christ _

She snorts as she scratches that word out. At this rate, Claire doubts God got it together long enough to get it on.

_ I’ve known victims longer than I knew Kaia. But none of them ever offered to come along after they were done being saved. No one ever laughed at my stupid doorknob scar joke. I mean, when people bothered to ask if I had any ‘badges of honor’ or what-the-fuck-ever. It’s tiny. Meaningless. _

_ Kaia saw it. She saw  _ me.

The next blank line stares at Claire. She keeps jotting down variations of, “Love is stupid and it can suck my dick,” because it sounds funny, and she hasn’t smiled since she went to bed.

Claire gives up on it. Instead, she writes, _ I really will rip a hole in the universe. Revenge is pretty romantic, right? Didn’t Shakespeare say that at some point? _

_ Holes are scars, too. Yet another kind, I guess. There’s probably something profound in there, but fuck if I know where to look for it. All I know is that love is bullshit. Every kind. The whole mess. _

_ Jody loves me. I think Alex might, maybe. Patience is...well. And Donna loves everyone. But me? I don’t know. I have no idea how I feel besides wanting someone to sew me back up, someone who’s bad at it, someone who’ll leave a mark I can point at and say, ‘Oh, that one? That’s Kaia. I think I might have loved her, but I couldn’t hold onto her long enough to figure it out.’ _

Claire closes her eyes and lets her forehead fall to rest on the journal, tapping the nib of the still upright pen on the paper beside her ear. The clock down the hall  _ tick tick ticks, _ and Claire hears the clicking of the monster she and Jody saved Kaia from, the asshole that’s buried in the backyard.

No one held Kaia when she died. Claire could barely hold on to her hand. Kaia’s eyes, though…

If only she could forget. No wonder hunters drink.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come flail at me about Jody and Donna and Claire and Alex and Patience and Kaia and a partridge in a pear tree over on [tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com). I like flailing.
> 
> Kudos and comments validate my existence. <3


End file.
